Maybe a DVD should be distributed every year to every citizen / tax payer. It could special-feature the NASA this year and the NIH the next, presenting extra insights to various age groups and link with the net when appropriate.
Steve, with your background on SGI systems programming... do you happen to have any idea on how to get X running under Linux on Indigo2? The information on how to program the hardware and everything is rumoured to be lost.
Open source as a system to maintain legacy hardware is admittedly not perfect, but... it is something.
Science soap? Well, for the analysis bits we are almost there. If we could now also be involved in the planning of such (criminal) experiments which involves the prior evaluation of one's action with respect on our model of the police force and the behaviour of the victim... hm.
High school student soaps should be more boring than university student soaps. I'd have tons of ideas. Just pass me time and money.
I understand this machine to be about 2^16 times as fast as my local workstation. Assuming CPU power doubles every 3 years, this would mean my grand (or great-grant) children to get such a machine as their first computer at some christmas or birthday occasion?
Today, we have the supercomputing CPU power (with respect to the 1940-70s of last century) for about every school kid. However, this has not changed society much, at least not to the positive. Or has it? Will it change society with a blue gene being available at Wal Mart in 2050? My point is not the availability of email and networks in general but the computing power that is so much more than required for normal office applications.
Why are we only talking about the kernel? Should the average
user have the opportunity to modify OpenOffice? Mozilla?..?
This should have a much higher impact on one's Aunty than the
kernel has.
To me the answer is yes. Open Source should communicate
technology on all levels and is as such a medium of education.
I agree that one should allow the user to break things,
however, the user should then be aware that (s)he is on
dangerous grounds. To a certain extend this is already
governed by
* the option to include experimental code
* the "choose N when unsure" messages in the help system
* dynamic offering/hiding of options
My personal opinion is that at the current stage not
much more is needed. If Eric's new installer is more helpful,.
fine.
From Apple's hypercard I remember that different user levels
where offered - ones were allowed to program, others could merely
use a system and intermediates. But we have this too as there
is root, world, groups and users and the ability to change can be
assigned respectively.
The "use a key and drive a car"-philosophy was said to have driven
the development of the closed-case Macintosh as a successor of the most
successful and most open Apple II. Learning from this they then had the
open MacII and learning from that they had the closed-again iMacs.
So, apparently there is a market for closed systems, but it seems to me
as if we need the open system to start with since this
is our model of development.
At least my aunties will never want to compile the kernel. People have too many
difficulties to distinguish file systems from the kernel from the programs
anyhow, they don't care. Root should always know what root is doing or know
that (s)he is risking to do it again.
Any open source system should come with all that is needed
to make somebody understand the system if these are willing to learn.
Today this is the README, the documentation, FAQs and of course
the source code. The kernel has it all and it can always be better. The kernel
should serve the whole community and the community should grow, but it should grow imcrementally.
Re:Commercially Developed Space Facility
on
NASA Gets Smart
·
· Score: 1
I would very much like to buy myself a share in Space Exploration - above on what I pay as a European citizen anyway. The same applies to other research projects like super colliders, space telescopes, etc.
This would give me the feeling to have participated above average in something that I think is good and important. At least _I_ would pay for this. A participation in the ISS may even make commercial sense - but this is not really important.
The (to me) funny thing is that I am not given a chance to spend some extra $s for my techno-beliefs. Or am I?
To make this clear - I am not proposing private companies to invest in space exploration but to have the the NASA and equivalents offer shares in (otherwise underfunded?) projects.
Your problem was that you were honest. You could have achieved your goal by posting anonymously, e.g. in a newsgroup/mailing list via some anonymous remailer. No way (?) you could have been caught.
Should there be an infrastructure for Anonymous Open Source development?
In every state there are agencies with an interest to have easy access to everything. There is a permanent threat of organized crime using strong cryptography. And some elements of state police would like to have an offical reason to kick in any doors. As pointless as it may be.
The wind has changed somewhat. Now they are talking about friendly states using espionage to get hold of business plans and new developments. It is not uncommon in Germany to hear a comparison of the NSA/CIA with a high tech STASI (former not-so-nice East-German intelligence).
GNU software means to become US-independent and the ability to verify it. The BMWI made a strategic move and a political statement. And after all - it is not much money for them anyway with huge publicity effect.
The challenge for the next century is probably less to achieve a good relationship with other countries but rather how we treat the people within our own country. Just look at this thread, I mean. Or think of your personal safety. How comes people get used to no-go-areas?
I can understand the Chinese if they say they don't want to have capitalism right away. I mean, you don't want a second russian chaos just 5 times as big. And besides, I am not sure if the earth can bear another 1 billion people with the average US per citizen energy consumption.
Less exciting than a commitment to Linux would be the government's support of free speech. Does one come with the other? Let's hope so.
Two hours later you could (or could not) see him on ARD, Germany. Must ask my mother for details;) Again the interviewer, Sabine Christiansen, has no technical background. Is this an accident? Or is this the conditione sine qua non to get him interviewed at all? Why does he appear on public channels? Where else will he appear within this week?
CodeCrusader looks very promising. Admittedly it looks very promising for quite a while now;)
The initial hype about CodeWarrior and the potential later frustration with it might help to attract more people who are willing to improve its native-Linux equivalent.
Personally I would not wonder too much if they go open source somewhen later as well, especially since now-owner Motorola is presumably rather interested in promoting its hardware than making money with tools you just need to develop for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe a DVD should be distributed every year to every citizen / tax payer. It could special-feature the NASA this year and the NIH the next, presenting extra insights to various age groups and link with the net when appropriate.
Steve, with your background on SGI systems programming ... do you happen to have any idea on how to get X running under Linux on Indigo2? The information on how to program the hardware and everything is rumoured to be lost.
... it is something.
Open source as a system to maintain legacy hardware is admittedly not perfect, but
Science soap? Well, for the analysis bits we are almost there. If we could now also be involved in the planning of such (criminal) experiments which involves the prior evaluation of one's action with respect on our model of the police force and the behaviour of the victim ... hm.
High school student soaps should be more boring than university student soaps. I'd have tons of ideas. Just pass me time and money.
I understand this machine to be about 2^16 times as fast as my local workstation. Assuming CPU power doubles every 3 years, this would mean my grand (or great-grant) children to get such a machine as their first computer at some christmas or birthday occasion?
Today, we have the supercomputing CPU power (with respect to the 1940-70s of last century) for about every school kid. However, this has not changed society much, at least not to the positive. Or has it? Will it change society with a blue gene being available at Wal Mart in 2050? My point is not the availability of email and networks in general but the computing power that is so much more than required for normal office applications.
Why are we only talking about the kernel? Should the average ..?
user have the opportunity to modify OpenOffice? Mozilla?
This should have a much higher impact on one's Aunty than the
kernel has.
To me the answer is yes. Open Source should communicate
technology on all levels and is as such a medium of education.
I agree that one should allow the user to break things,
however, the user should then be aware that (s)he is on
dangerous grounds. To a certain extend this is already
governed by
* the option to include experimental code
* the "choose N when unsure" messages in the help system
* dynamic offering/hiding of options
My personal opinion is that at the current stage not
much more is needed. If Eric's new installer is more helpful,.
fine.
From Apple's hypercard I remember that different user levels
where offered - ones were allowed to program, others could merely
use a system and intermediates. But we have this too as there
is root, world, groups and users and the ability to change can be
assigned respectively.
The "use a key and drive a car"-philosophy was said to have driven
the development of the closed-case Macintosh as a successor of the most
successful and most open Apple II. Learning from this they then had the
open MacII and learning from that they had the closed-again iMacs.
So, apparently there is a market for closed systems, but it seems to me
as if we need the open system to start with since this
is our model of development.
At least my aunties will never want to compile the kernel. People have too many
difficulties to distinguish file systems from the kernel from the programs
anyhow, they don't care. Root should always know what root is doing or know
that (s)he is risking to do it again.
Any open source system should come with all that is needed
to make somebody understand the system if these are willing to learn.
Today this is the README, the documentation, FAQs and of course
the source code. The kernel has it all and it can always be better. The kernel
should serve the whole community and the community should grow, but it should grow imcrementally.
I would very much like to buy myself a share in Space Exploration - above on what I pay as a European citizen anyway. The same applies to other research projects like super colliders, space telescopes, etc.
This would give me the feeling to have participated above average in something that I think is good and important. At least _I_ would pay for this. A participation in the ISS may even make commercial sense - but this is not really important.
The (to me) funny thing is that I am not given a chance to spend some extra $s for my techno-beliefs. Or am I?
To make this clear - I am not proposing private companies to invest in space exploration but to have the the NASA and equivalents offer shares in (otherwise underfunded?) projects.
Your problem was that you were honest. You could have achieved your goal by posting anonymously,
e.g. in a newsgroup/mailing list via some anonymous remailer. No way (?) you could have
been caught.
Should there be an infrastructure for Anonymous Open Source development?
In every state there are agencies with an interest to have easy access to everything. There is a permanent threat of organized crime using strong cryptography. And some elements of state police would like to have an offical reason to kick in any doors. As pointless as it may be.
The wind has changed somewhat. Now they are talking about friendly states using espionage to get hold of business plans and new developments. It is not uncommon in Germany to hear a comparison of the NSA/CIA with a high tech STASI (former not-so-nice East-German intelligence).
GNU software means to become US-independent and the ability to verify it. The BMWI made a strategic move and a political statement. And after all - it is not much money for them anyway
with huge publicity effect.
The challenge for the next century is probably less to achieve a good relationship with other countries but rather how we treat the people within our own country. Just look at this thread, I mean. Or think of your personal safety. How comes people get used to no-go-areas?
I can understand the Chinese if they say they don't want to have capitalism right away. I mean, you don't want a second russian chaos just 5 times as big. And besides, I am not sure if the earth can bear another 1 billion people with the average US per citizen energy consumption.
Less exciting than a commitment to Linux would be the government's support of free speech. Does one come with the other? Let's hope so.
Two hours later you could (or could not) see him on ARD, Germany. Must ask my mother for details ;) Again the interviewer, Sabine Christiansen, has no technical background. Is this an accident? Or is this the conditione sine qua non to get him interviewed at all? Why does he appear on public channels? Where else will he appear within this week?
CodeCrusader looks very promising. Admittedly it looks very promising for quite a while now ;)
The initial hype about CodeWarrior and the potential later frustration with it might help to attract more people who are willing to improve its native-Linux equivalent.
Personally I would not wonder too much if they go open source somewhen later as well, especially since now-owner Motorola is presumably rather interested in promoting its hardware than making money with tools you just need to develop for it.